Line of Succession (45 page)

“And you're not taking the wraps off until tomorrow morning.”

“At nine we'll caucus in the Executive Office Building. I'd like you to get up and make a little speech supporting me. The meeting will be attended only by those who've agreed to support me, so you won't be debated, but I want everybody in that room to recognize everybody else—I want them to see how broad the support really is. It's the best way to convince them it can work. I'm hoping you can get it onto the floor by the middle of the afternoon. There'll have to be an extraordinary session—it'll have to run right through tomorrow night. Hopefully we can bring it to a vote by then, or by early Wednesday morning at the latest. By that time you should have been able to get together with Philip Krayle and Winston Dierks and drawn up companion bills for both houses so we don't have to waste time in House-Senate conferences afterwards.

“As soon as you've got things moving I'll have Perry Hearn call a background press conference for an off-the-record briefing. But we'll want the announcement held up until Congress has voted—otherwise it'll give the right-wing
hoi polloi
time to break out their Goddamned arsenals, and we don't want that. It's going to hit the people like cold water but it can't be helped. I think if we take the press into our confidence a few hours in advance it'll soften the blow.”

Bee sat weak; he felt debilitated. “Mr. President, I've got no choice but to agree with you in principle. But what happens if we try this and it fails? The cost could be a divided country—far more divided than it is now.”

“What difference is there between that and what'11 happen if we don't try? A Pyrrhic victory for last-ditch defenders of the Constitution?”

“But we're going to have to fight the most powerful vested interest of all—inertia.”

“I'm glad you said ‘we,' Andy.”

“And what about the Supreme Court? Suppose they strike it down?”

“On what grounds? Congress has every right to amend its own laws.”

“But the Constitution goes to considerable lengths to put rigid limits on the term of office of a President. Essentially you're asking the Congress to allow you to perpetuate yourself in office beyond your elected term. The Court would have to look at it that way.”

“I don't think so. I'm only asking to be held over as interim executive until the elected President shows up to qualify. The judges on the Court understand reality when they see it.”

“There's another reality, Mr. President. Suppose we never get Cliff back. Suppose he's killed.”

“Then I expect I'd have another four years in office, Andy. I think that's clear to everybody I've talked to. Naturally you've got to weigh that. But it's still a choice between that and Hollander. Everything comes right back down to that.”

The President sat forward and put both elbows on the desk. “I wouldn't worry about the Court if I were you. I've already consulted with the Chief Justice. I know that's considered bad form but I had to cover that flank. The legal position the Court will probably take is simple enough. Congress has the power to provide for a vacancy in the Presidency by any method it chooses, so long as the candidate qualifies according to Constitutional basics—age, place of birth, that kind of thing. If Congress wanted to it could appoint the third assistant postmaster of Bend, Oregon to head up the line of succession. I can see how there might be a constitutional argument if I'd completed two terms in office, but I haven't. And I'm not proposing that my present term of office be extended. The new law won't take effect until one minute past noon on the twentieth day of January, and at that time I'll have retired. It'll be a new administration. I'll simply be walking out the back door and back in through the front door, but it satisfies the legal requirements.”

“Will it satisfy the people's requirements, Mr. President? Will the people accept it?”

“I hope they will if it's explained to them by men like you, Andy.”

A beat of silence, and Bee dragged himself out of his fatigue. “I'd like to be very blunt for a minute.”

“Please do.”

“If the law can be changed to allow anybody to become the next President, why does it have to be you?”

“Because I expect I'm the only one who can rally enough support. Do you think if you went to the Congress and asked them to elect
you
to the Presidency they'd do it in forty-eight hours?”

“No,” Bee admitted. “I'm sure they wouldn't. It would be far too raw. But it's pretty raw to do it your way too.”

“But my way is the only way that has a chance of succeeding. I'm the only man alive who's got the power to lead this fight—to swing the support of both parties in both houses. And the only one who knows what's going on in the Executive branch. Now I'm being just as blunt with you. It's a question of practicalities, Andy. You can't afford to give consideration to my ambitions or your misgivings. The only thing you can do is decide whether you'd rather have me or Wendy Hollander sitting in this chair come Thursday afternoon.”

11:40
P.M.
North African Time
Lime went through to the after cabin. Chad Hill sat by a portable radio. Binaud was somewhere up on the dock or in the bar across the road, being watched from the shadows by three agents; Binaud understood that if Ben Krim tipped to anything Binaud's head would roll. The gold sovereigns were the carrot on Binaud's stick; he probably would go along with it. If he didn't Lime would lose another round. All he could do was hope.

Chad Hill was listening to an announcer describe the arrival of the Washington Seven at Geneva Airport. Lime pictured a scene crawling with armed police and agents—like the arrival of the war-crimes prisoners at Nuremberg before the trials. The Seven had breached United States security to blow up hundreds of people; now the same security forces had to protect them against ambushes and lynch mobs. Those cops were less than happy about it and the announcer conveyed the flavor of their sentiments.

“Oh Christ,” Lime said abruptly. He stared at Hill. “Ben Krim's bound to be there isn't he. And there's still a pickup order out on him from Finland. We've got to cancel it or they'll grab him in Geneva.”

Hill said mildly, “I already took care of that.”

It was a good thing somebody around here was using his head. Wordlessly Chad Hill handed a paper-wrapped sandwich to Lime. He sat down and ate it, getting crumbs on his knees, listening to the radio.

“… prisoners will be sequestered under heavy guard at an unspecified hotel until further instructions are received from the kidnappers of Clifford Fairlie.…”

Of course they would have Ben Krim on the scene. To have a look firsthand. He probably had phony press credentials; Sturka had what seemed to be an endless supply of expertly forged documents for all occasions.

“Anything from down south yet?”

“No. And we're not likely to get much. Too many oil company planes going back and forth all the time out there. Who's going to remember whether or not they heard Binaud's PBY go overhead four nights ago?”

But it had to be tried. If they lost Ben Krim it was the only lead they would have left.

There was coffee from Binaud's galley. Lime drank two cups greedily. He drank it too hot and burned his tongue. “If we assume Ben Krim's in Geneva now it'll take him at least five hours to get here. Probably eight or ten—I don't know of any direct connections from Geneva to Algiers.”

He glanced at Chad Hill. The young man's fingernails were chewed down to the quick.

“I need air.” Lime left the cabin and made his way abovedecks and stood on the fishing deck by the transom looking at the gloomy lights of the tavern and the quiet wave crests and the plentiful stars. The Med was calm tonight and it was quite warm. Not hot but pleasant.

He checked the time. It was past midnight. A new day: Tuesday. In Washington it was still Monday evening. It brought up a fine point of interest. Suppose they recovered Fairlie. Suppose they recovered him at eleven o'clock in the morning Algerian time. Thursday. Suppose they rushed him to the American Embassy in Madrid or Tangier and the Ambassador administered the oath of office on the stroke of noon. By then it would be only six in the morning Washington time. Who would be President then? Fairlie or Brewster?

Here I am counting angels on pinheads.

TUESDAY,

JANUARY 18

6:30
A.M.
North African Time
Someone was shaking Peggy by the shoulder. “Go down and get him ready.”

She sat up. Squeezed her eyes tight shut and popped them open. “God I'm tired.”

“Pot of coffee over there. Take it down with you—he might need some.” As she struggled to her feet Sturka was adding, “He must talk this time, Peggy.”

“If he's not dead.” The anger was returning.

“He's not dead,” Sturka said with a kind of disgusted patience. “Alvin has been sitting up with him.”

She took the coffee down to the cell. Alvin nodded to her. Fairlie was on his back, flat out on the cot, asprawl and asleep, his chest rising and falling very slowly.

“Wake up please.” Her professional nurse voice. She touched his cheek—gray and cool, an unhealthy pallor. Respiration still low, she noted clinically. The pulse was slow but not terribly weak.

His eyes fluttered, opened. She gave him a few moments to absorb his surroundings. “Can you sit up?”

He sat up without help. She studied his face. “How do you feel this morning?” Echoes of the tutor in nursing school:
And how do we feel this morning?
An infuriating chirp.

“Logy,” Fairlie was mumbling. He was making strange faces, popping his eyes, rolling them around, grimacing—trying to clear his head.

Cesar appeared in his robes carrying a plate of food. She spent twenty minutes forcing Fairlie to eat and pouring coffee down him. He consumed everything obediently but without appetite and he chewed very slowly and sometimes seemed to forget to swallow.

At seven o'clock Sturka entered with the tape recorder. “All ready now?”

But Fairlie hadn't even glanced to see who had entered. He's still out of it, she thought. Too far out of it to put on the performance Sturka wanted?

She waited in growing fear: she didn't know what Sturka would do if it didn't work. To Fairlie, or to her. The past few days Sturka had let his anger show through. She had never seen that before; he had always been emotionless; now the strain was showing and Sturka had begun to slip. She caught the edge of his feelings once in a while and the intense force was alarming. It was a chill that came off him like death.

Sturka switched on the machine. Cesar sat on the corner of the bunk holding the microphone where it would pick up Fairlie's voice. This time there wouldn't be any editing; they wanted the pigs to know it was no trick this time, that Fairlie was talking without revisions.

They had spent a long time working out the wording. There had to be topical references to prove the tape had been made recently.

It was a fairly long speech because it contained detailed instructions for the release of the Washington Seven. Fairlie would have to read the whole thing cohesively. If his voice sounded weary and low that was all right but he couldn't stumble over every other word.

Sturka put his hand under Fairlie's chin and lifted his head sharply. “Listen to me. We've got something for you to read aloud. Another speech like last time. You remember last time?”

“… Yes.”

“Then just do it. When you've done it you can go back to sleep. You'd like that wouldn't you—to go back to sleep?”

Fairlie blinked rapidly; it was as much of an affirmative as anyone needed. Sturka became harsh: “But if you don't read this for us we'll keep you awake until you do. You've heard of what happens to the minds of men who are prevented from sleeping for too long? They go completely insane. You know that?”

“… I know. I've heard that.”

His voice did sound better than it had last night. Peggy walked in relief to the front corner, out of the way.

Sturka held the paper out to Fairlie—a long yellow ruled sheet from a legal pad.

“Read this aloud. That's all you have to do. Then you can sleep.”

Fairlie held it in his lap and frowned at it as if trying to focus his eyes on the hand lettering. A finger came down on the sheet. “What's this? El Dzamiba?”

“El Djamila. It's the name of a place.”

Fairlie tried to sit up but it seemed to require too much effort. He sagged back against the wall and held the speech up, squinting at it. Cesar moved the microphone closer.

“When should I start?”

“Whenever you're ready.”

Fairlie's eyes wandered over the sheet. “What's this about Dexter Ethridge—and this about Milton Luke?”